Posted
by
samzenpus
on Monday February 03, 2014 @02:43PM
from the read-all-about-it dept.

benrothke writes "At first glance, The Art of the Data Center: A Look Inside the Worlds Most Innovative and Compelling Computing Environments appears like a standard coffee table book with some great visuals and photos of various data centers throughout the world. Once you get a few pages into the book, you see it is indeed not a light-read coffee table book, rather a insightful book where some of the brightest minds in the industry share their insights on data center design and construction." Read below for the rest of Ben's review.

The Art of the Data Center: A Look Inside the Worlds Most Innovative and Compelling Computing Environments

author

Douglas Alger

pages

368

publisher

Prentice Hall

rating

9/10

reviewer

Ben Rothke

ISBN

978-1587142963

summary

Some of the smartest guys in the data center share their build and design advice

The book takes a holistic view of how world-class data centers are designed and built. Many of the designers were able to start with a greenfield approach without any constraints; while others were limited by physical restrictions.

Some of the firms profiled in the book are Citi, Digital Realty Trust (who run the world's largest data center in Chicago), eBay, Facebook, IBM, Intel and Yahoo!.

One of the interesting things about hearing 18 different viewpoints, both from the US and Europe-based firms, is that it shows there is not just one way to build a data center. Fundamental data center components such as raised floors are reconsidered in some of the data centers in the book. From UPS, to cooling systems and more, Alger details how the nuances of various data centers have influenced their design.

It is an unfortunate reality that many expensive data center builds and expansions fail.The book profiles those that have succeeded, and it is hoped the reader will take the advice to heart in their build and design.

The book is written in an interview style, where Alger asked the designers various question on how their came to their design, the rationale behind it, what their strategy was, what constraints they ran into, and more

The book highlights a broad range of data centers; from those built into a century old church in Spain, a former Swedish underground military bunker renovated into a modern data center with artificial daylight, manmade waterfalls and submarine engines providing standby power, to those powered by all solar energy.

Many of the data centers that he showcases are designed in order to be LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and Energy Star certified. LEED is a rating systems for the design, construction, operation and maintenance of green buildings, homes and neighborhoods, created by the US Green Building Council (USGBC). It should be noted that as of now, the USGBC hasn't set specific criteria for data center LEED certification.

An important point about LEED made in the book is that for those designers that are thinking about LEED certification, it must be done in the design stage and not as an addendum. Obtaining LEED certification must start at design and end with a formal certification after project completion. It was noted that consulting with a qualified LEED professional or consulting firm at the start of the planning process is a must.

While this is not a coffee table book, it does make good use of photos to highlight the nuances and layouts of the various data centers. There are many pictures that show the various types of equipment in use.

As noted, the book showcases many different aspects and often counterintuitive notions of data center design. One of the most significant is ACT, Inc., a nonprofit that runs the ACT test – a college admissions and placement test taken by more than 1.3 million high school graduates every year, who decided to runs their active and backup data centers in Iowa City, Iowa just 5 miles apart. The book details the designer's rationale behind that. Similar case studies are detailed in the book.

One of the major methods in the book used to reduce power consumption and cost is via the use of virtualization, which many of the data centers have used and optimized.

One topic lacking in the book is that Alger did not ask detailed questions around the physical security of the buildings. Why power, UPS, flooring and the like are critical to the efficacy of a data center; physical security components such as mantraps, access control systems, bollards, surveillance and the like are necessary to ensure all of the previous design items are not placed at risk.

One of the questions he asked every designer is if they could go back and design the data center all over again, what; if anything would they do different. Surprisingly, everyone one of them said that they put a lot of planning in and there was nothing major they would change. Most of the designers did though say each data center had small items though could have been revisited to make the center better. Bu most agreed that many of them are so minor in some respects, that it would not be meaningful to go through them.

An interesting point the data venter architect at Syracuse University stated is that one of the things they did in constructing their data center was to not necessarily be driven by rules of thumb or best practices. Rather they looked at their own requirements and how they could best optimize everything that they could in the design of the facility.

One common metric used throughout the book is power usage effectiveness (PUE). It is a measure of how efficiently a computer data center uses energy; specifically, how much energy is used by the computing equipment, as opposed to cooling and other data center overhead. The lower the number, closest to 1.0, the more of its power is used for computing.

Poor data center planning leads to poor use of valuable capital, can significantly increase operational expense and obviate any computation gains. Many organizations get overwhelmed on the design and focus far too much on speed and power, without taking a larger holistic view of their data center needs.

For those looking for guidance on how to design a world-class data center, The Art of the Data Center: A Look Inside the Worlds Most Innovative and Compelling Computing Environments should be the place you start.

I mean, every kind of facility that supplies any kind of service has a host of complicated logistics to take care of. What the review doesn't do, is make any claim about how well optimized to the many target variables the ideas in this book are. It just kinda goes "you should plan this shit, and this book tells you how to plan this shit" without actually addressing the relative quality of the information.

Or to put it another way: yet another 9/10 review that really is just a plug.

Maybe? It's not like I'm deeply involved in the financial matters of every user on slashdot(though you need to watch your checking account, it's dropping a bit low there, a small transfer from the "secret from my wife" account you have would help).

I mean, every kind of facility that supplies any kind of service has a host of complicated logistics to take care of. What the review doesn't do, is make any claim about how well optimized to the many target variables the ideas in this book are.

What does that gibberish even mean? If by that you mean the review does not make a judgment on how well each individual case study managed the design challenges of their data center designs, I don't see how that's the job of the reviewer. In fact, the whole point of the book seems to be that different skilled designers can approach the same problem in different ways, leading to different but still functional results. For a book reviewer to grade those decisions seems presumptuous at best and ridiculous at worst unless the reviewer possessed superior knowledge to the collective designers interviewed for the book.

What I would want to know before buying such a book is that it contained a diverse set of viewpoints from a diverse set of designers that ultimately generated successful designs. What the reviewer thought about how well "optimized" those designs were would matter not at all to me, unless I recognized the reviewer by name as an expert on data center design. In fact the notion that there exists a singular viewpoint or methodology by which you can judge "optimized" is apparently contradicted by the implicit thesis of the book. And as someone who delves into such design on a much smaller scale, I too have found that "conventional wisdom" is often extremely unwise, and the notion of "optimal design" is almost always very slippery.

I want to read how actual designers confronted actual design problems and resolved them with actual designs that then had to live with those designs implemented in real data centers. Everything else is random and generally worthless color commentary.

Any help with data center design is a plus. I've seen data centers built on top of a spring (where water comes out of the ground, not the bouncy kind) for crying out loud.

In my experience, here are some random things with a DC:

1: Put the EPO button under glass or have a flap that requires a seal to be broken before the button can be pushed. One place I worked at had it unmarked and people confused it for the door exit button.

2: If the DC owners brag about how awesome their security is, make the manual o

3: Keep the backup generator fueled and maybe test it. If diesel, add some anti-fungal preservative to it. Nothing like a power failure event, and the generator unable to fire up since the fuel hasn't been touched for 4+ years.

And my understanding with diesel generators, when periodically run up, they must be run under load (50%+). If you just start and idle with no load for years, then have a power failure, the generators will stall when load is applied due to excess carbon deposits, wet stacking etc.

1: Put the EPO button under glass or have a flap that requires a seal to be broken before the button can be pushed. One place I worked at had it unmarked and people confused it for the door exit button.

Those are called "Molly Guards". (There was actually a young girl named Molly where the name originated, though I never made the association with the name until I learned that).

3: Keep the backup generator fueled and maybe test it. If diesel, add some anti-fungal preservative to it. Nothing like a power failure event, and the generator unable to fire up since the fuel hasn't been touched for 4+ years.

Don't forget the UPS needed to keep power going long enough for the generators to spin up. You'd think that would be obvious, but...

Most large scale data centers have provisions to deal with loss of water. Air-cooled backup chillers, well or lake water, or large water storage tanks are all an option. Some facilities can also treat the "blow-down" water to reduce the need for make-up water.

Barring all that, I'm sure the NSA can arrange to have about 60 tanker truck deliveries per day for make-up water. Expensive, but not that hard.